abandonware games sorted by popularity

Few titles make a promise quite like Gamma Force in Pit of a Thousand Screams. You already know this won’t be a relaxing stroll through a meadow. Instead, it’s an energ...

A Dudley Dilemma (1988) sounds like the title of a children’s book, but it’s actually a very British text adventure for DOS where the stakes are politely quirky and mil...

Firezone is one of those late-80s action titles that seems determined to test both your reflexes and your optimism. It drops you into hostile territory and expects you to cope. The...

Released in 1994, Sensible Golf took the elegant sport of chasing a tiny ball and gave it the unmistakable Sensible Software treatment. Rather than drowning players in endless stat...

Welcome to Tass Times in Tonetown, where the ‘80s collided with science fiction and nobody cleaned up the mess. It’s a bizarre adventure full of punk hairdos, neon colo...

Part strategy, part fantasy empire builder, Realms gives you a continent to wrangle and a surprising number of ways to embarrass yourself. You recruit armies, juggle rebellious pop...

MicroLeague Wrestling is an abandoned wrestling action game based on the WWF league, developed by MicroLeague Multimedia and released in 1989 for DOS. MicroLeague Wrestling was als...

Back in 1983, IBM Centipede brought arcade bug-blasting straight to home computers, allowing office machines to moonlight as insect exterminators. This adaptation of the arcade cla...

By 1992, Vol. 3 wrapped up the trilogy with even more complex scenarios. At this point, the series had become less of a game and more of an interactive textbook—though that&r...

In Castle Master, you get dropped into a spooky polygonal castle and told, “Figure it out.” And that’s it. Early 3D graphics make every wall look like it was pain...

Mech Brigade (1987) is a strategy game that lets you live out your dream of commanding an army of giant robots. Set in a futuristic battlefield, you’re in charge of deploying...

Cyberpunk meets click-and-point in Computer Underground, a game that looks like it was programmed in someone's garage—and probably was. You’re a hacker navigating a pix...

Dive into Aquanox (2001), where post-apocalyptic submarines battle it out beneath the ocean in a world that’s half Waterworld, half neon rave. With moody lighting and dialogu...

Might and Magic: World of Xeen is what happens when two already massive RPGs decide to shake hands and merge into one enormous adventure. By combining Clouds of Xeen and Darkside o...

This 1992 casino sim for DOS drops you into the neon-soaked carpet jungle of the Four Queens Hotel in Vegas. There’s no plot, no hero’s journey - just you, a digital ba...

Anvil of Dawn is what happens when 1995 tries to reinvent the fantasy RPG and ends up creating something strangely beautiful. It’s first-person, it’s real-time, and it&...

The Operative: No One Lives Forever is a first-person shooter with stealth gameplay elements, developed by Monolith Productions and released by Fox Interactive in 2000 for Windows,...

Dune Generations was a canceled 3D MMO strategy game set in the Dune universe that was never published. Dune Generations was in development by Cryo Interactive ...

Skate or Die is the embodiment of late-’80s “cool,” complete with neon chaos, absurdly dangerous skate events, and characters who look like they stepped out of a ...